Rural UK FTTH ISP B4RN Launches 10Gbps Home Broadband

B4RN (Broadband for the Rural North), which is currently working with volunteers to help fund and build a new gigabit capable Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) network across rural parts of England, has confirmed that they’re now making a 10Gbps broadband package available to “everyone who wants it.” But you’ll need deep pockets.

The provider, which operates as a community benefit society (i.e. they can’t be bought by a commercial operator and any profits are distributed back into the community), have so far connected thousands of homes and businesses to their new fibre optic cable across rural parts of Lancashire, Cheshire, Cumbria, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk and Yorkshire.

At present if a consumer in one of their areas wants to take a package then the ISP charges just £30 per month (plus a £150 one-off connection fee) on a 12 month term for an unlimited 1Gbps symmetric speed service, which makes them one of the cheapest providers in the UK (the deployment model is obviously not the same as that of a commercial operator).

Admittedly B4RN’s network has always been capable of delivering 10Gbps (not unlike many other FTTP providers), but until now a package that could be taken by ordinary homes didn’t exist. The reason for this is simple enough because most people wouldn’t even be able to take full advantage of 1Gbps today (e.g. slow WiFi, hardware limits and the various bottlenecks of remote internet services), let alone 10Gbps.

Nevertheless the ISP has confirmed that if a home user wants a symmetric speed 10Gbps connection then they can now take one, but naturally all that performance will attract a hefty price tag of £150 per month. On the other hand such a price is actually pretty impressive given the stated level of performance.

Barry Forde, CEO of B4RN, told ISPreview.co.uk:

“B4RN is now offering a full 10Gbs/10Gbs service to everyone who wants it at a price of £150/month (inc VAT) … What anyone will do with 10Gbs is a good question but I have great faith in the ingenuity of people and am sure they will come up with some novel applications.”

Just to be clear though, this isn’t actually the first consumer 10Gbps service to surface in the UK. Residents moving into the new The Stratford (Manhattan Loft Gardens) building in London have had access to a 10Gbps package for the past year (here), thanks to Telcom off-shoot ISP Black Fibre, but that service is even more expensive at £199 per month (the millionaire residents in those luxury apartments can probably afford it).

One other thing to note is that B4RN’s new package, which doesn’t yet show on their website (we’re told it will be added shortly), attracts a larger one-off connection fee of £360 and that’s partly due to the provider choosing to bundle in ZYXEL’s new high spec AX7501 router with 802.11ax WiFi, which you’d of course need when dealing with 10Gbps connectivity (accurately testing the speed of such a connection is another matter entirely).

Meanwhile B4RN are also supplying the same connection and routers to 21 rural schools across their patch (here). Otherwise B4RN can definitely claim some more bragging rights over this one.